cliff and really haven't figured anything out, they just let the democrats have the middle income tax cuts and then we go over the cliff or over the curb, as you would have it, and then we begin in a month or two to hit the debt ceiling and yet now democrats don't have the leverage of the tax cuts. i'll be honest with you, lawrence, i have tried and tried and tried to figure out what the political advantage of doing that would be for the republicans. i've had no success figuring out the strategy behind that plan but certainly there are smarter minds than mine over there. maybe they have some idea of where getting the tax cuts done will help them and not the democrats. >> i'm going to read what abc is actually reporting about this. they say, house republicans would allow a vote on extending the bush middle class tax cuts and offer the president nothing more. no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes, under one variation of this doomsday plan, republicans would vote present on the bill allowing it to pass entirely on democratic votes. and ry